As promised in my previous 2009 Recap in Numbers post, I have gathered some of my best posts and illusions from the past year, and decided to share them with all of you that keep this site prosperous. This is my personal “Top 10 Optical Illusions” list for 2009, and I hope this practice becomes standard in years to come. As I mentioned, I’m perfectly aware we already have the ratings and Top 10 list placed in the sidebar, but here you will find included all those illusions that amazed me the most throughout the past year. Either with their illusion effect, beauty or simply because they were something new in this optical illusion field. I have selected more than 30 illusions that I find somehow special, and it was a real task to reduce them to mere 10. Still, below each one I added a short explanation and linked those that didn’t make it to the final cut. No more talk, let us begin with the list:

When posted, this illusion didn’t attract as much attention as I hoped it would. Perhaps I didn’t explain it well enough, or simply I was isolated in linking with this one. I just can’t stop admiring to some of Guido’s ambiguous creations. Another 2009 favorite of this type was Encore by Shigeo Fukuda.

“Why the heck has Vurdlak decided to include these boring old spirals in his collection, when we already saw bunch of them over the time?” Well, out of the all motion-moving and seemingly animated illusions, I have to say I never saw any capable of fooling me this hard! With all my optical illusion experience behind me, I still struggled into believing this one is static!

After posting the original See Saw, Mr. Anonymous created an animated GIF that strengthened the effect even further! Look how our see-saw switches between unbalanced and balanced, when all we do, is remove the filling pattern on second identical frame.

By now, most of you got to know me, and my unexplainable resistance to posting video illusion. Still, this has to be the coolest optical illusion video after the Little Green Dragon! Another one posted in 2009 worth mentioning, would be: Pocket Rocket.

What would you expect from a guy in middle of his twenties? I love all that is sexy, and it wasn’t easy not to spam this list with more than 10 illusions from my Sexy Category. My self-control prevailed, so I included only one. I’m still not sure whether Sexy Lamp should have won this spot…

Yup, I appreciate visually appealing illusions the most. Like them even better if they’re effective and make you say Wow! Xaver Nitsch managed to create such one. It kept my attention, and stayed in my memory. The twist was a little different than what we were previously used to see when looking at Relative Cars.

Why did I chose this one? Well, because it was one of those rare ones that kept me thinking and gave me hard time understanding it. Usually relative-size illusions are obvious, but this one forces you to think!

Even though I can’t say for sure that all of the above illusions are truly ranked in correct order, what I am certain of, is that Craig Tabary’s body painted Leopard marked 2009 for me. Perhaps it wasn’t the most realistic body paint drawing we had opportunity to see, but it was the hardest one to distinguish from a flat drawing. This is my favorite optical illusion in 2009. Another body paint illusion worth mentioning would be: Amazing Obama.

Thank You Vurdlak! You have made my world a little bit better…..keep up the great work! I think you are a Genius! I look forward to seeing what you come up with in 2010………..

Garry Slocombe

Hi Vurdlak,

Thanks for your site. I have enjoyed it for about a year now.

I know a fantastic illusion that I accidentally discovered about 15 years ago. Perhaps you know someone with a bit more time and imagination than me who can turn it into something you can post. Perhaps it will be in next year’s top 10.

First you need to find a reasonably high waterfall that allows you to watch the water falling for a second or two at least.

Follow some water from the top to the bottom with your eyes focussed on the water so that you can see the horses form and charge before they smash into the ground below.

Do this about 10 times and then look at the surrounding trees, rocks or whatever is there. Keep your head still and don’t move your gaze.

Your view will appear to move like a waterfall flowing up. Parts will appear to be growing.

Maybe there is a waterfall nearby that you can try it on.

Perhaps someone will also be able to explain it.

All the best

Garry

Care Bear

Winners all. Thank you.

A place to look. Check out the American Express commercial, as seen in North America, for imaginative happy-face/sad-face creations from common objects.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Ravanis/1297077670 Peter Ravanis

the lepord pic was deffinately the best!!! but i have seen beter pictures of mother nature that are not photoshoped. in the grand canyon there are many.

Braden

i agree that they are all did deserve a place in the top 10! i always knew how “2) Gulliver in a Land of Lilliput” worked, but now i saw on the original picture thatthe chair and the legs cast different shadows, so that makes it easier to figure out.

Greeng11

I didn’t even see some of these ilusions b4 this is siriusly awsome!! ;)

遲蘋

;) coooool

Daniel

The small lady on the chair is SOO easy taken me 5 secs look at the second pic first and you will see then on the first one shes not on the stand shes behind the stand on a chair with no legs

Detective Kitty

some of them I don’t find that interesting but I think these are very amazing illusions…the cars was to me the most amazing of them all…because it was very unexpecting…

http://johnrcarlisle.wordpress.com/ John R. Carlisle

What a cool bunch of photographs! I forward #2 and #5 to everyone here at the John R. Carlisle Institute and they loved them! “Gulliver in a Land of Lilliput” was the crowd favorite! The guys all liked the “Leopard Illusion” one! Big shocker there…lol.

John R. Carlisle

andrew

cool stuff!

random

in the 2nd one, the chick is sitting on the floor, the camera angle makes it look like shes floating, picked that up in like 2seconds! haha

http://www.gmail.com farzana farin

that was wierd n cool

http://www.gmail.com farzana farin

the tiger 1 was mostly

M@$t3r 11Lus10ns

WHOA… i feel un comfortable now…. >_<

cardamella

i couldnt get a couple of those illusions but that leopard one was really great.

Ryanna

number five is just boobs

Grace

Told you all the leopard was a lady!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kimi

They’re cool illusions all, only I couldn’t see the spirals spinning. Not sure why. Thanks for sharing!

Person

Number 8 (slanted seesaw illusion) is fake. I held a ruler against it and the line clearly moves.

minimike

i agree with person – number 8 does actually slant. put your finger to the corners and you will see the change. the original seesaw does work as they put slightly twisted lines, but this is a load of ****. all the others are pretty good, especially the audi and the leopard.

Arianna

Hi Vurdlak!! I just wanted to show you a waving flag optical illusion. With your mind,you can change which way it is waving!

http://thetribulationtimesherald-exhorter.blogspot.com/ LD

#9 is wild!

astrid

woah the one with mother earth is crazy!!!

Manuel

Hello Ariana,

Do you know how i can contact Illusion Artist?
I work in none profit organization and they are looking for something to enhance our neighborhood/streets and create more traffic and this Art will be fantastic?

Does any want know where i can contact this artist?
Thxx

http://moillusions.com kiana

for the first one that has the three for the last time its a flat medle design